Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to make a few comments today to commend the LNP Queensland government on their excellent plan, for the 2032 Olympics, announced yesterday. It has been quite the rocky road to get to this point. There have been a few stumbles along the way, but I do think we now have a plan that all Queenslanders and all Australians can get behind and deliver the best games ever in 2032. That's certainly been the reaction I've heard from Queenslanders overnight, while I've been down here. I have had the privilege to know a little bit about these things. We have, for most of this parliament, had a Senate inquiry established on the planning for the games and, as the chair of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee, I have been leading that inquiry through that time.

As I said, it's great to get to this moment. For a while there, there were some concerns—particularly when the former Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, decided to abolish the independent organising committee that had been such a successful model for the Sydney Olympics and other Olympics subsequent to Sydney. She had decided to abolish that after the election of the Albanese government. The independent committee was a request of the federal Morrison government, before. Things seemed to go downhill after that. Decision-making was centralised in the Premier's office. We had a proposal for the Gabba to be used as the major stadium, which seemed to come from nowhere and certainly wasn't properly costed at the time.

Subsequent to Premier Palaszczuk stepping down as Premier, new Premier Miles decided to scrap that and move to upgrading the old QEII Stadium, in Brisbane, now known as QSAC. That seemed to come from absolutely nowhere, and the drawings that were produced did look a little bit embarrassing. There was an attempt to almost have a cut-price games, at the time, in the lead-up to the 2024 election.

But all that's been swept aside now. We can forget all about that. The independent organising committee has been re-established. The new government established a 100-day review to look through all this stuff, as quickly as they could, and I do think the plan that was delivered yesterday is fantastic. One of the reasons I think this plan is much superior to what was on the table before is that it is a plan that involves all Queenslanders. Queensland is such a big, wonderful state and, unlike most states in this country, it is quite regionally dispersed. We have large population centres a fair way from the capital city of Brisbane. Indeed, still, to this day, about half of Queenslanders live outside of the capital city—very, very different from most other states in this country. I myself live in a region away from Brisbane, in the Rockhampton region.

Many of us were perplexed that we were going to have to pay for this wonderful event, all the way down in Brisbane, and not see much of it at all. But now we have the opportunity to involve all Queenslanders, to sell Queensland to the world. The previous plan that the LNP inherited had just a few football games occurring in Townsville and Cairns. Hardly the high-profile, marquee events at an Olympics, they were just qualifying games for the football. That was in stark contrast to the last successful Paris Olympics. Even in Paris, six sports, across 10 cities, were played at least 200 kilometres from Paris. They used their whole country. In fact, you probably remember, they had surfing in Tahiti but many other sports spread right through France as well. It would be a shame for us not to do the same thing.

Now we have a plan that involves all Queenslanders. We have the equestrian events going to Toowoomba, which has wonderful heritage as a rural, agricultural town. They'll do a great job with that. We have archery being proposed for Maryborough—a beautiful, historic town—showcasing that part of Queensland. Sailing—

David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Where's the pig shooting?

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What did you say? Where's the pig shooting? That's a very good interjection from Senator Pocock! We might put that. I think each games has the ability to add a couple of local events. I have a few places I'd suggest for the pigging! We could market western Queensland as well. But you distract me, Senator Pocock. We've got the sailing up in the Whitsundays and Townsville. That's a wonderful idea. Why would we not use the games as a vehicle to sell and market the Great Barrier Reef to the world? Hosting the sailing through the Whitsundays will be a wonderful opportunity to do that. Cairns will continue to host football as well as some indoor sports events. That will mean infrastructure upgrades throughout regional Queensland.

That brings me to my hometown of Rockhampton. After the push from a number of locals last year we've been successful in having the rowing moved to Rockhampton. It was an amazing result for my community and my region. We're often overlooked, but the Liberal National Party team—they're in Central Queensland—always fights for our region. I was fortunate enough to be joined by the member for Capricornia, Michelle Landry, and newly elected state MPs Donna Kirkland for Rockhampton, Nigel Hutton for Keppel and Glen Kelly out at Mirani. All of them got behind this vision. We have a wonderful rowing facility already in Rockhampton. It's often used by the Australian Olympic team to train. The state school championships are held there annually. We will now also have the ability to sell the Australian bush, with the beautiful gumtree-lined river there, the Fitzroy River. It's also connected to the reef as well, which is just 40 minutes away. So I'm very excited about that.

There's nothing like a crocodile to sell newspapers, is there? That's what I've discovered over the last few days. People love them. They just love crocodiles and they love hearing and talking about them. It's sort of strange to me—and we scratch our heads up there—when everyone's saying that somehow there'll be world records set because the crocodiles will be chasing the rowers, rah, rah, rah. Well, how is it that we can allow 700 of our children, school children, compete in the Fitzroy River every year but that apparently there's going to be a huge risk for Olympians? If there was a risk for Olympians, why would we as parents allow that? I should say that I've got skin in this game. My son rows on the Fitzroy River three or four times every week, normally, in training. It's perfectly safe. It has been used for a hundred years. In fact, no-one has ever been killed by a crocodile in Central Queensland. They do exist in different places, but they're well managed, and our river is very safe for human purposes. I'm sure we'll be very successful.

More recently we have heard about issues of streamflow in the Fitzroy. Again, a few of us are scratching our heads. There are people who don't want the rowing in Rocky, and I understand that, but there has to be a winner and a loser in these things. Now people are saying the river will flow and that that will cause interruptions to the event. First of all the river does have barrages, which are not tidal at all. It flows from the ocean and is contained. The streamflow from upstream doesn't really happen at this time of the year. That's why the locals don't understand this issue. We're a subtropical environment. Almost all of our rain—95 per cent—occurs in the summer months. In the winter months, as a recent hydrological study of the Fitzroy River concluded, the river slows to almost a zero flow. I've had a look at this in detail in the last couple of days, since the issue was raised, and the streamflow gauges that we have show a flow in winter, in July-August, when the Olympics will occur, at well below the world rowing association's threshold of 0.1 metres per second.

I should say that the world rowing association has been very flexible for LA. In LA, the rowing is occurring at a marine stadium that is impacted by tidal flows. In fact, the course will just be 1,500 metres—500 metres shorter than normal—to allow LA to host the rowing in the Long Beach area, where so many other events will be. In terms of the flows there, when the world rowing association went to do its feasibility study, it detected flows of 0.15 metres, which is 50 per cent higher than the allowed threshold, and yet it has still approved the holding of this event there. So there's obviously a degree of flexibility.

I think it's now time to just get behind this plan. I've had some conversations with colleagues on the other side. They seem happy and excited. I hope we can put aside the politics now and deliver this great event for all Australians. I remember as a young person that I was probably a little sceptical of the Sydney Olympics leading up to it—we all watched the Games and those sorts of things—but, geez, it was a wonderful event. It was so good in bringing our country together. It was done brilliantly. All credit to Sydney and the people who organised it. We all remember it. So now we've got the opportunity for the same thing for a new generation of Australians, especially those young Australians who compete at the highest level. It will be an amazing opportunity for them to compete on their home soil and hopefully win as many gold medals as possible for Australia, and we can all celebrate with them.